Stranger in a Strange Land
by bhut
Summary: Instead of Portland, Oregon, Trubel ends up in Vancouver, B.C. Can she make it her new home, or will she be unable to outrun her past?
1. Chapter 1

**Stranger in a strange land (part 1)**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to their respective owners._

_Note: this story takes place after the end of P:NW S1 and in place of the last four episodes Grimm S3._

Theresa Rubbel (also known as "Trubel" to her friends, not that she had any lately) was, well, in trouble: she was lost. This was a different kind of trouble as opposed to what she was used to, but still...

Theresa Rubbel's problems began when she had hit puberty, and people that she knew as well as perfect strangers began to transform into bestial monsters and tried to kill her, while claiming either self-defence or that she was "Grimm". Theresa did not know what a "Grimm" was, she was positive that she was not one, and she was really tired of monsters trying to kill her.

She was also tired of monsters turning back into humans after they died. This made Therese get into trouble with law as well, and Therese really wanted to clarify her situation at that end as well – but she did not know how. The law obviously was not going to save her from monsters, and Therese was nowhere ready to die, no matter how pathetic her life had become.

This state of affairs has left Therese... well, lost, but more immediately on the run. For several years by now she had been moving from state to state on foot, on train and plane and automobile...and she had become quite adept at doing that.

OK, not at flying planes. This Therese has done only now, after taking a real risk with airport security, only to find out that she was lost – rather than land her in northwest USA, the plane had deposited her in Canada instead. Western Canada, which meant, that if she wanted to return to her homeland she only needed to go south, to the main 48 states rather than westward to Alaska – but still.

Therese was sitting on a bench. It was late April, almost May, but the weather has just recently begun to warm-up: it had been a hard, long winter with overly large amount of ice and snow, so the plants – and the songbirds, Therese had noticed absent-mindedly – were doing their best to make-up for the lost time and to show the world that they were still alive!

For the trees it meant sprouting as many buds, flowers leaves and seeds as possible in as little time as possible...literally from everywhere. Not just branches, but roots and trunks as well. That included the seedlings, which were sprouting throughout the lush grasses and flowers (dandelions and white clover at this stage) all over the place.

The songbirds were present as well, robins and starlings, pigeons, gulls and the ever-present sparrows, whose simple song reminded Therese of the States...but in a good way. "Maybe I can make a new life here?" Therese muttered to herself. "I mean, there are no monsters here, maybe?"

It was when the giant tortoise appeared. Moving with all of the grace of an armored truck, swinging its spiky head, and chomping on the nearby linden and maple trees, it ignored Therese, as if the latter was completely insignificant and not even worth to be killed ASAP.

For her own part, as soon as Therese's brain caught up with her body and shifted it out of a fighting stance (and standing right next to a smattering of spruce trees that the monstrous reptile ignored – it was a leaf-only herbivore, it seemed), she realized that as well, and relaxed.

"Giant tortoises," she muttered to herself. "Plant-eating and rather dim giant tortoises. I can live with that."

"Ms, are you talking to yourself? Are you all right?"

Therese looked, genuinely startled once again: giant tortoises and other monsters was one thing, but ordinary people were another, and she was generally good at detecting them beforehand.

"Yes, I am fine," her mouth moved before her brain reacted that most of the people on the scene were dressed in military uniforms of some sort, meaning that they were not quite ordinary either. "It's just a tortoise, a giant tortoise...it isn't going anywhere."

Therese's interlocutor blinked. "Well yes, it is that...still. It is a giant tortoise, you know?"

"Yes, well," Therese blinked in her turn. "It's no big deal. When I was little, I had a tortoise, and it never really went anywhere, it just stood at one spot and grazed. This one does too... so it isn't that different from the ordinary ones, right?" she smiled gratuitously at the man, certain that some submissiveness, when dealing with a man in a uniform, would not hurt. (She learned this the hard way.)

The man blinked again, apparently deciding that it was his turn. "You're not an animal control person like Dylan is, are you?" he asked, apparently as unbalanced by this conversation as Therese herself was.

"No," she replied. "In fact I've arrived here only recently."

This was true: as soon as Therese exited the airport, she grabbed her few belongings and left, seeking to vanish herself inside a city...but Canadian cities were smaller than the American were, and Therese soon found herself in the suburbs instead. Since she was not just hungry, but also tired, she decided to take a rest on the first convenient-looking bench in the small park, where the giant tortoise had apparently found her...and the military, it seems, have found the tortoise instead.

"OK, but where do you usually work?" the man insisted. If he was not in a uniform, Therese would take offense and go on the offensive, but since he was, she did not dare, and in fact all that she wanted was to escape...although she was just a little bit curious what these soldiers were doing with the giant tortoise and from where did they all come from.

"I am between jobs," she said instead, deciding that honesty was the best policy here. Then some of her old – very long ago – character raised her head and asked:

"And why are you asking this? Who are you, people?"

"Oh!" the man became noticeably flustered. "I am Lieutenant Ken Leeds of the Canadian military. I am with the project Magnet...and this is project Magnet!" he swung his arms out and about. Instinctively, Therese looked around. Nothing has changed – same trees, same people, same giant tortoise, and the same overcast spring sky, really.

"I don't see it," she confessed. "What does it look like?"

Lieutenant Ken Leeds of the Canadian military also looked around and winced. "I mean," he began, paused, open his mouth to start again and changed his mind. "Ms. Finch, Ange, could you help me out here? We seem to be talking the same language, but apparently we just aren't quite communicating!"

"Let me see," the aforementioned Ange said softly as she emerged into Therese's field of view, and the young woman's heart sank for here, she could unexplainably feel, was something much more familiar to her: one of the monsters that would attack her on sight for no particular reason-

Only it did not happen: something was wrong. The monster – Ange – had obviously seen something that was different with Therese from it was with lieutenant Leeds or anyone else – but there was no attack, no sense of hostility, no nothing.

Well, there was something, but more like irritation or annoyance, which most certainly _was not_ the same, and that difference kept Therese sufficiently off balance for her to do anything stupid or regrettable.

"What's the problem?" Ange, who may or may not have been a monster, turned to Lieutenant Ken.

"Her!" the latter pointed at Therese. "She, she-"

"Yes?" Therese was actually hurt and upset – she assumed that she was acting normally until now. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Nothing – except maybe faint in fear at the sight of a giant tortoise," Ange said acidly. "Although I don't know why – it _is_ just a giant tortoise, you know?"

"Not that!" Lieutenant Leeds groaned. "About project Magnet!"

"Ah, right, you should've said so at the start," Ange grinned. "Just joking. All right, Ms.-"

"Therese."

"Ms. Therese. What you have stumbled into is a rather classified operation of the Canadian military. Now, from what I have overheard, you are actually from the States, so this makes it slightly trickier-"

"I got my paperwork in order," Therese said quickly as she reached into her backpack: that was certainly true, as Therese has cobbled a rather successful legal patchwork image over the years from bits and pieces. "There is no problem, isn't there?"

"Let me see," Ange looked thoughtfully at Therese, suggesting that she had a better idea at what was going on with Therese than the other woman would have liked, took the half-offered paperwork, and walked away, clearly intent at looking over the documentation at her leisure.

This was bad, Therese was not sure that her work would stand up to a proper scrutiny at all, but before she could react, there was a loud noise, and a machine, vaguely similar to both a bulldozer and an electromagnet appeared on the scene.

This was strange even by Therese's standards – not dangerous strange, more like bizarre strange – and she stared open-mouthed as the odd-looking vehicle manoeuvred itself into a proper position... and stopped.

"All right people! Let's do it!" lieutenant Leeds cried excitedly.

There was a pause as everyone stopped whatever he or she were doing and looked towards Ange, who, sadly, was engrossed in Therese's fake identity and did not react in time...

"Ahem!" Lieutenant Leeds said, sounding slightly cross now. "I am in charge of the field operations, Colonel Hall had said so, so let's do it!"

There was another pause and then the military's machine flared to light – literally! When the chromatically white light faded from Therese's eyes, she found that herself, and the others, were no longer in a Canadian park, but elsewhere: the climate was hotter and drier, and the plants were different: not lindens and maples, but palms and even eucalyptus of all sorts. Grazing among these trees were other giant tortoises, clearly of the same species as the one that Therese and the others have met first, and next to them were some strange beasts, hairy and mammalian, as big as rhinos, but without any horns...

"Lieutenant Leeds, you idiot! We have been here before! We have tried to retract a plane before using this invention! It backfired, remember?!" Ange's voice was loud and angry, but the lieutenant was not worried at all.

"No we haven't – you got it backwards! Last time we tried to return the plane to _our_ time, while in this case we have had to return a prehistoric tortoise to _its_ time, and it has worked."

Ange paused, looked around, and came to a conclusion. "Very well, I grant you that. Now please take us all back..."

There was a pause as she trailed away because by now everyone could hear a heavy tread of a stampede, and see a small herd of giant-sized kangaroos, each one bigger and heavier than an average man, going straight towards them, chased by a giant lizard that looked longer and heavier than an average boat.

This action was not going on too far from the humans and was actually moving towards them at a very respectable speed, so the humans needed leave ASAP.

"Ahem!" Leeds turned back towards the vehicle and its operator. "We need to leave now-"

"On it!" yelled the other man as he did something inside the cabin...and some sort of a wildcat landed on top of the vehicle. There was another chromatically white flash of light and when it faded, Therese found that she, and the others, were standing back in the city suburbs, without the giant tortoise... but with the wildcat standing on top of the project Magnet's roof.

Therese frowned. True, the wildcat looked more like a leopard or a cougar, though its proportions were different, and so were the teeth, but beyond that...it wasn't a monster; Therese stared at it almost eye-into-eye, and felt no fear, no haze that would come over her whenever she faced off against a monster that could wear a human's shape. This was a dangerous animal to be sure, but just an animal – she could handle it...

Only she did not have to: there were sounds of gunfire, and the animal collapsed...not dead, but tranquilized.

"That's one way to handle a troublesome problem," lieutenant Leeds said brightly.

"Sir – the controls are fried, we'll have to rebuilt it almost from scratch again," came the response that wiped the smile clean off the lieutenant's face. "I'm not sure what the superiors will say-"

"Um, Ange-" Lieutenant Leeds turned towards the woman.

"Um, nothing," Ange was not very helpful either. "Right now I have to take care of Ms. Therese, so you are in charge of the clean-up, so try not to kill the new animal, or Dylan will have us all for garters. Ms. Therese?"

"Just Therese is fine," the aforementioned "Ms" said quickly.

"I'm afraid that we have to go now and have a talk with a lawyer," Ange said, as she firmly took the other woman by hand and led her to a car.

Faced with a prospect of being on her own with a monster, Therese gulped and almost bolted. But... there still was no feeling of danger, no threat underlying Ange's voice – Therese may have been in trouble, but not in peril as she was used to. And so, this realization kept Therese sufficiently off balance long enough for her to get into Ange's car and for the two women to drive off.

As the hubbub of lieutenant Leeds's clean up faded in the distance, Ange gave the other woman a look:

"I think we need to talk."

_TBC_


	2. Chapter 2

**Stranger in a strange land (part 2)**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapter._

As the two women drove off, the mood in the car was awkward, even if neither of them wanted to admit it first. "So," Therese took a deep breath, "are you a monster? You feel like a monster, but you aren't attacking me, and you don't feel particularly monstrous either."

There was a pause, during which the already uncomfortable atmosphere inside the car dropped by several degrees. "I suppose I shouldn't take offense," Ange muttered back. "It's been a while since I've encountered Grimms, and I know that you, especially at your age, can be either self-centered or idealistic – I am just not sure which of the two are you."

There was a pause as something began to throb at Therese's edge of vision – not rage, but her other familiar companion: despair. "I'm not a Grimm!" she desperately yelled back. "I am a human! An ordinary human, just like the people back in that park are!"

"…You mean the people who deal with prehistoric monsters at a regular basis and sometimes travel through to do that?"

"They're not monsters, they're animals! Monsters are those who look like humans yet are not," Therese sighed as her confused mind tried to make sense of an already troubled day, and not quite succeeding. "And did we really travel through time earlier today?"

"Yes," Ange nodded. "I am not sure when we went, I admit, but it was the past. What, the giant reptiles, and kangaroos, and the animal that we brought back – _accidentally _– weren't convincing enough?"

"Sorry," Therese muttered, before pulling herself together and asking the question that really mattered (to her, anyways). "Why aren't you attacking me? The others always did."

"Americans," Ange sniffed, before growing more serious. "Ms. Rubble, you must under. We – us – the Wesen are territorial and do not usually get along. And no one likes Grimms either. I am not sure why you came to our country – maybe to secure a small cottage in the wild outdoors somewhere, and live most of the rest of your life in quiet solitude – but-"

"No, wait, I didn't," Therese shook herself. "The idea of living my life in quiet solitude isn't a bad one, but I am a city girl." She tapped her fingers thoughtfully upon her knees. "I, I confess that I am not the bravest person around, but to live the rest of my life in hiding – that's too much. Where are we going, by the way?"

"To Clio's. Your documents can pass, but not up to a good scrutiny. Clio's can. In fact, that's her special talent, so please; don't call her a monster either when you meet her."

"Did she kill anyone?" Therese looked Ange right in the eye. "Did _you_ kill anyone?"

"No," Ange met Therese's glare straight on. "And Clio…she tried bounty hunting, and it really didn't work out, so no, she didn't kill anyone as far as I know."

"I may be a fool to trust you," Therese sighed, "but I will trust you. I haven't trusted anyone for a long time and it sucks, to put it politely."

There was another pause and the social atmosphere in the car has changed yet again. "For someone so young you've certainly been through the wringer, I believe," Ange said quietly. "Well, maybe this will help you and I and Clio get along – she and I didn't have the best of living until we came to Vancouver either."

The rest of the ride was done in silence.

/

To Therese's surprise (she had grown weary of them, but still), Clio was apparently some sort of a legal worker – someone else that Therese has been weary off, but not so much as of monsters – or of people in uniform.

"Ange, hi, this is an unexpected surprise," the short woman with the ponytail began brightly, but immediately grew serious when she saw Therese. "And who is _that_?"

"Therese Rubbel, a young woman in a need of a new home and of a new life," Ange said smoothly. "Can you please work something out with that? For a fee, of course-"

"The fee isn't the question. Since when do you cater to Grimms, Ange?" Clio got out from behind her table and looked at the other woman.

"I don't," Ange shook her head, and it was then, belatedly, Therese realized that the two women in front of her were not quite human, but they were not monsters; in fact, they were rather short, and fragile-looking, and she could probably defeat them without going into her berserker-like state of mind.

That realization was unusual for Therese, also sobering, and so she just stood there, quietly, without bolting, while Ange replied:

"But this isn't a usual Grimm. This one may be not unlike us, though younger."

"Is she, now?" Clio skeptically asked, and turned to Therese. "Give me your hand."

"Here," Therese instinctively replied and thrust forth the limb in question – and Clio grabbed it, and looked it over, in a manner similar to a fortuneteller's.

"I see," she said after a while, during which she had traced several lines over Therese's hands. "Ange, I would say that you have done it again, but because the first time you have done it, it was about _me_, I shouldn't be surprised, really. And as for _you_," she turned to Therese, "then yes, I will get you a new identity and past history – your future, and your present, are in your hands, and only yours."

"…Okay," Therese began to wonder if those people were not just crazy – harmless, but still crazy. "Can we talk about something else for a change?"

"Certainly," Clio returned to her desk and began to sift through papers, both her own and Therese's. "Where do you want to work? What kind of life do you want to live?"

"Somewhere close to you," Therese confessed. "It's nice to meet people who aren't trying to kill me, whether they're human or not."

"Fair enough," Clio raised her eyes and looked straight at Therese. "How are you with self-defense and weapons?"

"A definite yes to the first, a passable yes to the second," Therese replied without hesitation. "Why do you ask?"

"With Mac Randall gone there is a vacancy at Cross Photonics, and everyone would probably feel happier if it was taken-over by someone who doesn't work for Colonel Hall," Clio said brightly.

"Now see here," both Therese and Ange spoke up at the same time, blinked, and stared at each other, startled by that.

"No, you see here, you two," Clio replied calmly. "Firstly, we need to keep Ms. Rubbel away from Hall. He is the sort of a man who'll cut a Wesen open to see how it works and if it can't be utilized for prestige and glory." (Therese blanched.) "Secondly, we need to keep him away from Cross Photonics – Ange, I know that Evan Cross isn't your favorite person at this day and age, but still, he's the best option we've got. Thirdly – the two of you _have_ hit it off, and though both of you may disagree, Ms. Rubbel needs presence of other Wesen to keep her stabilized. Ergo, Cross Photonics it is."

"Well," Ange still looked not quite sold on her friend's points when her cell phone rang. "Speak of the devil… Hello, colonel. Yes, I know that lieutenant Leeds was not to remain unsupervised when dealing with a giant prehistoric tortoise. Yes, it is my responsibility, but so's Cross Photonics and I just had to deal with a new employee – it is unavoidable. Evan and Dylan have not returned from their pursuit of the dinosaur that got the best of you, so running CP is mainly my job right now, you know? Is it worth it…now that's a funny question to ask, sir – if you'll excuse me, I will be with you shortly?" She put the phone down and looked at Clio. "Do it. If we're to stick it up the colonel's craw, might as well do it all the way – _if_ Ms. Rubble here doesn't mind."

"I can handle it," Therese said – so far, all of today's events have been largely spontaneous, but they did work out for the best, so why not now?

"So what now?" Therese turned to the other woman.

"Now? We get to talk to several military-type men," Ange sighed, clearly unhappy about this. "And that includes lieutenant Leeds and major Hall. Joy."

"Not colonel Hall?"

"No, he's still downed by the dinosaur."

"...I'm sorry, what?"

"I'll explain later. For now, we need to go to the front entrance."

And off they went.

/

Cross Photonics, the place where Therese was going to be working now, (she supposed), was a rather remarkable place, both with front and back entrances. Sure, that was not remarkable by itself, but it seemed to her, that some people (starting with her new friends), appeared to have divided the building into several parts, each with its own atmosphere, and intentionally so as well. That said, the sight of several people in military uniforms, (including lieutenant Leeds), arguing, while the panther that Therese has seen earlier, was stuck in a cage, looking at the people with some sort of a lofty disdain in its gaze.

"What is going on here?" Therese muttered quietly, but loudly enough for the argument to stop. Ange gave her a warning look and then moved forwards in a very new manner, one that Therese found disturbing for some reason.

"Lieutenant," she said, smilingly, to Leeds. "Major," to the other, taller, man. "What is going on here?"

"As it was agreed earlier, between our superiors and you, Mr. Cross, and Ms. Weir, any creatures stranded in time will go to CP now, not to us," Leeds said brightly. "Whatever argument we've had – and I'm not denying that we had one – it isn't about _that_, believe me!"

"Splendid," Ange beamed and turned around, facing the underlings (so to speak). "Please, take the animal around, there's a designated area in the back."

It was at this moment that Therese Rubbel felt another familiar feeling stir in her breast: irritation. She was not going to be overridden that easily. But then she looked caught the animal's gaze and the irritation vanished. The animal looked clearly relived to be here, and that what muttered, really.

...As the noises of the argument (or a very animated discussion) faded behind her and she walked around the CP building once again, to see where the animal in question was to be deposited, Therese Rubbel smiled for a first time. She had assumed that she had seen it all and that she would never be able to settle down, but here, in the land of not-quite-monstrous monsters and prehistoric (time-displaced?) animals, perhaps things would be finally different, better for her.

End


End file.
